The United Nations is to send a humanitarian team to Sri Lanka's war zone, where thousands of civilians remain trapped as government troops battle Tamil Tiger rebels.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's decision to send the team came after the military said an exodus of 103,000 people from the tiny coastal strip had slowed, four days after troops blew up an earthen barrier the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
The safety of the remaining tens of thousands in the 13 square km rebel area prompted the UN Security Council to demand the LTTE surrender and Sri Lanka institute another pause to the fighting.
"So many lives have been sacrificed. There is no time to lose," Mr Ban told a news conference in Brussels.
The LTTE, whose fighters wear cyanide capsules to be taken in case of capture, has ruled out giving up its fight to build a separate state for the Tamil minority. The LTTE began fighting in the early 1970s, and has waged a full-blown civil war since 1983.
With conventional victory so close, Sri Lanka has rejected calls for another truce after its two-day holiday fighting pause last week was spurned by the rebels, who are designated a terrorist group by more than 30 countries.
Mr Ban said that the "rapidly deteriorating situation" had prompted him to immediately dispatch a humanitarian team to the war zone, which the army had earlier set up as a no-fire zone but has now turned into its final hunting ground for the LTTE.
Sri Lanka's minister for disaster management and human rights said the world body had not yet made an official request. "Once we have been informed, we will see certainly see how we can facilitate such a visit," Mahinda Samarasinghe said.
Ms Catherine Bragg, UN assistant secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, made clear that a formal request had in fact been made. She told reporters in New York that the United Nations was awaiting permission from the government to send a security team into the conflict to assess the risk to the humanitarian mission.
Ms Bragg said the mission will be led by Canadian Neil Buhne, the UN Development Program's highest ranking official in Sri Lanka.
Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama acknowledged that the "situation was less than ideal," and urged outside help at a meeting with foreign diplomats, the Foreign Ministry said.
"With the unprecedented influx of large numbers of people in such a short period of time, obviously we do face an emergency humanitarian situation, and our friends in the international community are most welcome to provide emergency relief," he said.
Colombo has resisted every attempt so far to give the Tigers breathing space, pointing to what it says is the LTTE's record of manufacturing civilian crises to build external pressure for truces it has then used to re-arm.
Earlier this week, the International Committee of the Red Cross said fighting had killed several hundred people. A land and sea battle on Wednesday blocked the evacuation of wounded by sea and the delivery of aid supplies by a ship, it said.
"We are negotiating with the parties in terms of having a safe area around the boats to allow the fishermen to bring the wounded to us," ICRC spokesman Simon Schorno said in Geneva.
The Tigers and the military traded blame over the incident.
The ICRC lowered its estimate of civilians still trapped in a narrow coastal strip on the island's north to less than 50,000. Bragg put it at 50,000 and said there were some 95,000 in displaced-persons camps, up from 80,000 on Wednesday.
Reuters